Lovell was indeed grace personified on the bike - but maybe not out of the saddle!
I guess you could add Gord Singleton to the list of the highly competitive Canadians at the time - he and Lovell had quite the rivalry going in the late 70s early-80s. Alex Stieda was also coming on in the early-80s but did not make much impression at the Nationals.
Paul Williams,
Ottawa, ON, Canada
Dr. Paul B. Williams, BAH, MPhil, PhD Instructor, Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:29:26 -0500 Subject: Re: [CR] Was: Rebecca Twigg. Now Jocelyn Lovell From: ealbert01@gmail.com To: castell5@sympatico.ca CC: oroboyz@aol.com; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Lovell was a wonder. He always showed up to races in his green Carmen Ghia convertible. He had a rose tattoo on his ankle. He wasn't the friendliest but he was the best. He started, I believe, riding for Mike Barry and Mike Brown in their club Britannia. then rode most of his career with a Toronto Club called First Portuguese sport club. They had the best. Ian D'Ornellas, the Vellands, a bunch of riders from Hamiton, etc. He was good friends with Bauer, Hugh Walton. In that period, Ontario and Quebec was filled with some amzing riders. It was a wonderful time to get beaten. One story about Lovell I may have told before was a road race in London, Ontario or thereabouts. Some guy in the field was acting squirlly and Lovell warned him. The next lap Lovell hooked him into a ditch. The field cheered. The field was now safe for more useful dangers. The story of his accident with a Garbage/Dump truck was shrouded in mystery and rumor. It happened out were a lot of us trained by the Ontario Airport. Some say the truck just turned into him while he was training, some say he was pacing behind the truck. Neither would be surprising. Edward Albert Chappaqua, New York, U.S.A.
On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 5:13 PM, Dr. Paul B. Williams <castell5@sympatico.ca> wrote:
Nope still living. I do remember the day he was run down though.
Some interesting clips and pics of Jocelyn on these two sites (check out the video on the second clip where he talks about training in the winter slush with sand in his water-bottles):
http://archives.cbc.ca/
http://www.sportshall.ca/
>From what I remember he was not the most likeable of characters. His feat in 1974 of winning all but one of the races at the Canadian Championships was extraordinary though (sprint, 1Km, individual pursuit, team pursuit, team time trial, road race) - distances from sprint to 200km! 10 National Road Championships golds. 6 National Track Sprint golds; 2 National Track Points Golds. 4 Commonwealth Games gold medals (also 1 bronze and 1 silver). 2 Pan-am Games gold medals.
Struck down at 33 it is hard to say what else he may have accomplished - this was the beginning of the reigns of Curt Harnett on the track and Steve Bauer on the road. Lovell became a mentor to Bauer.
Dr. Paul B. Williams, BAH, MPhil, PhD Instructor, Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
> To: jameshmerz@gmail.com; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:14:41 -0500
> From: oroboyz@aol.com
> Subject: [CR] Was: Rebecca Twigg. Now Jocelyn Lovell
>
> Yes, in a wheel chair since the early 1980s. He had a line of high end bikes for a while. Does anyone on our list have an example of his bikes?
>
>
> I just found this bit of info online:
> << Jocelyn Lovell starting making bike frames from his own workshop in the early eighties. After his tragic accident the business was closed. I believe that Mike Mulholland of Cyclops Cycles bought his equipment. Both the Lovell and Cyclops bikes have a place in Canadian bicycle history. Both were reasonably well made.
> After his accident a good number of Lovell bikes were made by Velosport in Quebec. I believe some of the procedes went to the Spinal Cord Society. The bikes were of mediocre quality.
> ...(snip).....
> Mike Barry.>>
>
>
> I also see that Lovell passed away in 2005.
>
>
>
>
> Also:
> << Once a grand Canadian marque, highly revered and sought after by all, the Lovell name has been bought by a distributor and is now known as Lovell USA. No longer are these lovingly handmade one-by-one by skilled Canadian craftsmen, but mass-produced Asian imports adorned with Lovell decals and low direct-to-consumer prices>>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dale Brown
> cycles de ORO, Inc.
> 1410 Mill Street #100
> Greensboro, North Carolina 27408 USA
> 336-274-5959
> http://www.cyclesdeoro.com
> http://www.classicrendezvous.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Merz <jameshmerz@gmail.com>
> To: CR List <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Sent: Sat, Jan 29, 2011 4:01 pm
> Subject: [CR] Fwd: Rebecca Twigg
>
>
> http://cyclingmagazine.ca/
>
> I found this story about Jocelyn Lovell. I did not know he had been
> paralyzed. He raced in the Northwest, I was in at least one race that he was
> in. Pretty good rider, to say the least.
>
> Jim Merz
> Big Sur CA
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jim Merz <jameshmerz@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 12:13 PM
> Subject: Re: [CR] Rebecca Twigg
> To: rdf1249@aol.com
> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>
>
> I did not have much to do with Rebecca, but had one incident where I saw her
> ride. Have no idea on the year, but one time I was at the finish of Seattle
> to Portland watching the first finishers. I seem to remember she was going
> with Jocelyn Lovell at the time, and he was out to be first in this ride. He
> came in first, some crazy fast time. Then about 15 min. later came a tandem
> team, with Rebecca right behind them. She was not even entered, just went
> for a ride! Anyway, maybe I am not remembering this correctly but I do
> remember being impressed.
>
> Jim Merz
> Big Sur CA
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 11:43 AM, <rdf1249@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Well, I don't have any mementos of Rebecca, except maybe the poster of her
> > on her Benotto bike and 7-11 jersey and white Duegis, but I have a lot of
> > memories. We were both on the Velocipede team the summer she started
> > racing, 1977. She rode in the track nationals that year, a month after the
> > first time she rode the track (on a borrowed Davidson track bike, by the
> > way), and won her age category. She was just 14, and living back and forth
> > between her divorced parents. She was just out of 8th grade, and heading to
> > the University of Washington in the fall. Yes, she skipped high school
> > entirely. I kept her bikes running, and picked her up at one parent or
> > another's house and took her to the races. She was sweet, and naive, and
> > determined. Smart as a whip, but not a lick of common sense. Guess that
> > had to come with more maturity. We both switched to Rainbow Cycling club in
> > 1980, when Kolin and De la Rosa moved to town and started it, along with
> > Northwest Cycle, where I we
> > nt to work. Through their many connections, they were able to get her
> > sponsorship from Schwinn, who made her several nice light bikes. Mike
> > hammered at her relentlessly, seeing the potential in her, and saw her
> > through a couple more nationals until she got tapped by Eddie Borysewicz for
> > the national team. We followed her along in a great career, culminating in
> > 16 US Championships and 6 World Championships. I last saw her a few years
> > ago at a Marymoor Velodrome dinner, kid in tow, a mature young lady.
> > Following along in mom's footsteps, already divorced. She had been married
> > for a short time to Mark Whitehead, a hotheaded young racer himself. She
> > had attained a PhD from the UW and was working as a biologist.
> >
> >
> > Message: 12
> > ate: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:49:26 -0800 (PST)
> > rom: Joe Starck <josephbstarck@yahoo.com>
> > ubject: [CR] Rebecca Twigg memento for sale:
> > o: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> > essage-ID: <245219.41597.qm@web34302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> > ontent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> > Laddies, gladdies, baddies, caddies, and daddies -- who've I left out? --
> > not
> > he Australian framebuilder, who fav's the red as much or more as I do,
> > ergo,
> > I've had me a half bottle o' cabernet see, just right nowso -- a demi or a
> > semi
> > onthly occurrance? I forget -- and I also happened to be a-diggin' amongst
> > me
> > ersonals see, and lo and behold, as I held it in my hand, the first thought
> > hat entered my mind was, that one o' youse bloody bike aces would shirley
> > fancy
> > he pleasure of proclaiming, in yer best docent demeanor, "This here is a
> > letter
> > ritten to Joe Starck, from Rebecca Twigg."
> > It's got flowery borders, and if I knew my stationary from my Aunt who'd be
> > my
> > ncle if she had balls, I'd cough up some accurate descriptive details of
> > this
> > etter's paper, but I'll leave that to Ole Shiffer, cuz I happens to know he
> > nows his crocus from his sharmin better than I do.
> > Dated "May 26, 1993," this letter is. Yours for $50. $50.01 if you are
> > Ernst.
> > Joe Starck
> > adison, Wisconsin USA
> > Joe asks the Chief a legal Q:
> > ttp://wisconsinreflections.wisc.edu/guests/show/28
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Bob Freeman
> > Elliott Bay Bicycles
> > 2116 Western Ave
> > Seattle, WA 98121
> > 206-441-8144
> > http://www.elliottbaybicycles.com
> > http://www.davidsonbicycles.com
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
-- Edward Albert